


Future Perfect

by ChiRhoAO



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23412103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiRhoAO/pseuds/ChiRhoAO
Summary: The adventures of Steven and Connie's children, as they learn they got more from their father's side of the family than they bargained for.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is meant to serve as something of a Pilot so I can gage interest before committing to writing a full story. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

**Future Perfect**

**Chapter: Zero**

**Casting Call**

_Lars Universe was floating away in a bubble, while his older sister watched in sheer terror. The gems were off on a mission, and why did he have to get powers anyway?_

Chloe was enjoying a day in the summer sun of Beach City and reading a charming book about a warrior princess fighting a dragon. Meanwhile reality kept doing what reality seemed to always be doing, annoying her. Lars, who was only two had discovered that he could make bubbles yesterday. The gems had been amazed. Mother on the other hand, had taken it as an opportunity to teach her "responsibility".

He looked just like mother too, with black straight black hair. She hated that. Taking more after her father's physique she always felt like the ugly duckling in any room. Now she had to be responsible for him, being fourteen was the worst. Of course, somehow, she thought that letting her brother float away would be solving one problem only to create another.

The bubble holding her brother was now hovering over the temple. She ran into the house as fast as she could and used the warp. She saw the bubble just as it reached the tip of the lighthouse above the statue. Then she did something exceptionally stupid. She jumped.

Her brother was too far out, it shouldn't have been possible, but she reached the bubble. Then she started to fall. Naturally she let out a blood curdling scream. She kept screaming expecting a splat while her brother maintained a goofy looking grin.

"Oh… I'm floating like dad." So she had powers after all. That thought thrilled her until an even more horrifying realization struck her. She was falling very slowly, to slowly.

POP!

Her brother fell into her arms, "Chlo floats!" He proclaimed. It was great, it would also be hours until anyone could come to her rescue. Salvation came when her phone rang. She looked at the distance below and prayed that she didn't drop the little brat. She pulled the phone out of her pocket.

"Hello? Oh Mom, yes I practiced my violin… listen… yes, yes, the dishes are all clean I need… Yes of course we're ready for Grandma's visit." She couldn't believe her mom was doing this to her now. Saying no to her was a lost cause and always had been, but this was urgent.

Finally, she shouted, "Mom I'm floating a hundred feet above the house with Lars in my arms, help!" She hung up before clumsily dropping her phone. Her brother was confused. "Well I'm not paying for it."

It took forever for anyone to show up. Unfortunately, it was Amethyst. She stared up at Chloe and chuckled, "Hey Chloe, how's the weather up there?"

"You Clod! I can't hold on to Lars forever."

In a flash the short purple gem turned into a trampoline. "Toss him down."

"Are you crazy?" Chloe shouted down.

"Dude, I'm a gem remember. It'll be fine."

That made her cringe but she complied and dropped her little brother.

Connie Universe rode Lion through the portal just in time to see her daughter drop her son to the ground. She had to pause to make sure her heart hadn't, in fact, leaped out of her chest. Her son hit Amethyst and bounced. She transformed back into her normal form and catching little Lars. He responded by bubbling them both. "Hey what's the big idea?" Amethyst asked.

"Amey, Amey!" He shouted back excited.

She sat and crossed her arms, "Great, guess I'll be here for a while."

Connie finally caught up to her, "Thank goodness he's safe." She looked up at her daughter who was still floating in mid-air. "Chloe, are you okay?"

"No!" She shouted, now in full panic.

Steven Universe warped in. At the sight of his daughter floating in mid-air he smiled wide. He jumped into the air to meet her face-to-face. "Heya kiddo! Dropped what I was doing the moment Connie called to say you were floating."

"Dad how can you be so calm, I've been floating up here for nearly an hour? I just want down." She looked like she was about to cry.

"Hmm," he thought to himself, "I don't suppose it'd help to tell you that when I discovered this power, I was stuck up here all day. Would you believe the secret is the easiest thing in the world? Just take a deep breath with me."

"Okay," she breathed in and out. "What next."

"Like all my powers, its attached to my emotions. Try to think of an image that makes you happy, something that relaxes you."

She tried to picture being totally alone, relaxing with a book, and not having to babysit her demon brother. It only seemed to make her lose more control. Her father was acutely aware of just how difficult new powers could be. Where she found that her mother was always eager to push her to improve, her father was always ready to listen.

When it seemed that whenever everything was falling apart, she had her family. Chloe was always failing, failing at her schoolwork, breaking violin strings, but there was mom, dad, Garnet, and Pearl. She smiled, now confident that everything would be okay. No sooner did she think this than her feet were once more on solid ground.

Her father spoke up as he rustled her short, perpetually messy black hair. "Keep practicing, it's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it." He turned and winked, flashing a thumbs up, "Remember, 'if every pork chop with were perfect.'"

She groaned, "We wouldn't have hot dogs."

He smiled, "You've got this." He turned to his wife giving her a peck on the lips.

"Gross." Chloe said flatly.

"Now where has Lars run off to."

Connie gestured off to the beach, at the large pink bubble that was moving down the coastline, "Lars."

He just smiled, "It's great to be back home." Steven put his arm around her.

"It was nice of your dad to let us move in." She said. Secretly she had been thrilled when he suggested that they move back to Delmarva. After two, four-year terms as governor of Jayhawk, she was eager to move on, and now had her eyes set on bigger prizes. Moreover, as governor, she had missed out on much of her daughter's early life. Steven had handled it as best he could, but it sometimes pained her that she had missed her daughter's first words and steps.

It had been a long time since Connie had said goodbye to Steven before he went on his long, cross country road trip, she had been so nervous when he kissed her goodbye. She'd had nothing to worry about, and she was even more hopelessly in love with him now than she was then.

Amethyst wandered back around sunset, holding Lars, now sound asleep. "The little guys bubble popped when he fell asleep." She handed the boy to her mother. "If ya need me, I'll be eating your garbage." Connie sighed, "Let's go put him in bed." The family went inside and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

The night was everything a summer evening should be. The sky was clear, and the stars dazzled in all their splendor. Out on the beach two small gems stood with a telescope gazing out at stars impossibly far away.

"Why don't we go in and introduce ourselves now!" Ruby said. She was so excited the sand beneath her feet was super-heated into glass footprints. They had yet to see Steven's children since their birth, owing to adventures that seemed to ever increase in absurdity. Always a need for a fortune teller out there.

Sapphire remained fixed and calm as always, gazing at one of the many bright nebulae in the night sky. "Patience my love, her adventure is just beginning. Though I will say I was a little disappointed this wasn't the possible future where she's still floating."

"Huh," Ruby started to fume, "She discovered her powers, and we missed it."

"Not to worry," I think you'll be amazed what she's capable of. "Now you must see this, the Orion Nebula looks stunning tonight."

"Nothing's as pretty as you." She looked into the telescope, and wasn't disappointed.


	2. A Mother's Gift

**Future Perfect**   
**Chapter: 2**   
**A Mother’s Gift**

Chloe’s morning routine was much the same as any other girl her age. Her father’s old bedroom, though small, had been well kept by her grandfather before he returned to living on the road. The place still felt like it belonged to someone else with its aging rock posters. Who the heck were Sadie Killer and the Suspects? She squinted at her phone, “5:23 a.m.”, and tried in vain to wipe the sleep from her eyes.

As she did every morning she waddled sluggishly over to the balcony. With an audible, “hmff” the door opened, sending a gush of cool, salty air into the room. The young lady smiled as she looked out on the starry night sky just as it was giving way the orange hues of another beautiful day in Beach City.

She was brought back to unpleasant reality when her phone alarm went off, blasting: “I can’t help it if I make a scene, stepping out of my hot pink limousine.” 

Chloe stamped enthusiastically at having woken before the cursed bit of metal and plastic that was her cell phone. The young lady dismissed it, declaring, “beat ya again!” In that moment she felt like she was a queen basking in the applause of a grateful public. This self-inspired applause lasted only a moment before devilish reality set in, causing her to shrink back from her adoring audience, and put both her hands over her mouth. Why’d I have to go and shout that out the window! She whimpered, hoping that no one heard her declaration of victory over an appliance. As in so many instances the only casualty was stupid pride.

After completing her morning routine, she gave herself a once over in the mirror. Light blue and yellow striped tank top, blue jeans with yellow star patches at the knees. Pearl had been the one who had sewn the patches on her favorite jeans after she had fantastically wiped out on her bike the previous year. Her short curly hair just did what it wanted. Once her mother had tried to straighten her hair, only once, the bathroom smelled like burned hair the next week.

She was a little surprised Pearl hadn’t put out her clothes as she usually did for the day. Not that it particularly mattered, she was old enough to do her own laundry. “Oh it’s no trouble at all, starshine.” How many times had she heard that over the years? 

Chloe didn’t mind all that much. Her father could be gone for days with the work that he always refused to talk about, and Mom was always working at the job she couldn’t stop talking about, “Mr. Heartford spent nearly three hours going over the finances for the refurbishing of the State House, I found one little error and now yaddah, yadda, yaddah.” After a while those conversations just became background noise. It always came to the girl’s relief that these conversations almost always happed at the dinner table, and was invariably bookended with, “So how was your day?”  
In the same sense, “It was good,” was always the proper reply. She had to work at it to, lest her mom try to pry into her actual feelings. At once she knew when all hope was lost, because like the death knell, her ruin was, “Why do you seem so down.” It was always the prelude to a sometimes passive, sometimes aggressive argument.

Life back West was incredibly, unforgivably dull. Pearl made breakfast, then violin practice, followed by school work, lunch, school work II- math and other sedatives, meditation with Garnet, dinner with Mom, her daily escape to a some fantastic world by way of a book, sleep, repeat until death or the weekend comes to shake things up. That shake-up could go one of two ways: If she was left with Pearl, perish the thought, she would be dragged to some obscure museum or worse… the opera. What she desperately looked forward to was when her Dad was home, he at least had a sense of fun.  
She loved all of them but sometimes she wished Amethyst had come West with the others. She had a sense of fun, even if that fun was more than a little deranged in nature. When she’d first arrived in town the gem spent the entire day shapeshifted into her, it made her livid, but it was more fun than she’d ever had with Pearl.

Chloe had begun to think that today might be pretty laid back, that dream only lasted until she got down the stairs and saw that her Mom was there. Was there some holiday she missed?

“Good morning Chloe,” her mother said, blowing the steam off of a mug of still steamy coffee. 

“Oh, yeah, morning…” Chloe said. She was rummaging through the cabinets in hopes that Amethyst left something to eat in the house. Bran Flakes. Of course. She sighed and made her way to the breakfast table.

Things were tense. Pearl had taken her to a play once, “daggers in men’s eyes”, it sounded like the way she felt every time she looked her into those eyes. Everyone told her that she had her mother’s eyes, but she just doubted hers had the fire that occasionally made her mom so terrifying. 

“I have a present for you.”

  
She spooned some of the flavorless crud into her mouth. Chew. Chew. Swallow. “The last time you said that it was a violin and my fingers still don’t feel normal.” 

“It’s a different kind of instrument, and I think you’ll like it. I’ll show you when Pearl gets back.” Her mother said.  
“Where is Pearl anyway?” Chloe returned. 

“She went to little Homeworld to get the present I mentioned. She’s old friends with the smith who made it. Not too surprising that she got carried away, I was a little surprised that they never became a couple.” Just then Pearl came through the door with a package under her arm. 

“Sorry I’m late.” She said placing the package on the table. “Good morning Chloe, hope you slept well.”

“Fine thanks,” she replied.

“Well I’ll leave you to it, let me know if I can help in any way,” she nodded at her mom and went into the temple.

“What’s this all about anyway?” Chloe asked.  
It took some effort to free the package from its brown paper sheeting but when the last of the paper had been removed, Chloe Universe beamed. It was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. It gleamed in a glossy pink. She picked it up, surprised at the weight. Her mother smiled at her, “I’ve been meaning to start teaching you the tricks of it.”

“You know how to use one of these?” She said, incredulous. 

“Of course, your fathers not the only knight in the family,” Connie replied.  
The girl was dumbfounded. She tried to picture her mom fighting battles, and for that matter, her dad, but couldn’t. Like a black swan, it defied her own preconceptions. As she looked down at the sword in her hand, she wondered if there wasn’t more to her as well.

###

Ruby and Sapphire sat on a bench in the local park watching gems and people passing by. They loved to be garnet but there was always something to be said for enjoying each other’s company first hand. Sapphire was deep in thought over the outcome of the days events.

Her other half was bold as ever, “Didn’t you wanna be there to see her cool new sword? I even helped fire the furnace for Bismuth.” 

“Patience is a virtue my love, it’ll all work out for the best.” She said this stoic as ever.

“Are you sure?” Ruby wasn’t convinced, she knew what garnet had seen.

“97.3% at very least collateral damage will be at a minimum.” She replied.

“What about the other,” Ruby attempted to come up with the figure only to confuse herself into a stuttering mess, “One, carry the five, divide by.” Things were getting hotter by the second.

Sapphire hopped off the bench and held hands with her little inferno, “The other 2.7% is down to believing in Connie and Chloe. I believe in them, don’t you?” 

“O-o-f course I do,” she said, a billow of steam coming from their hands.

The two walked arm and arm forward. 


End file.
